Omics approaches
Metagenomics and Metatranscriptomics
Metagenomics profiles the community’s genomic potential by shotgun sequencing environmental DNA to inventory which genes are present and what functions they could support. It is often applied across environmental gradients or size fractions to compare functional capacity among habitats. Metatranscriptomics measures realized activity by sequencing environmental RNA, to determine which genes are being actively expressed at sampling time, enabling functional and taxonomic annotation of the expressed protein‑coding repertoire. In marine studies, transcript profiles frequently show higher functional richness than gene catalogs and can diverge from DNA‑based potential, highlighting the distinction between capacity and expression and allowing links to environmental drivers such as temperature.
Suggested reading
- Heitger, M., Amano, C., Reinthaler, T., Papadatou, M., Pokorny, L., Alvarez-Salgado, X. A., & Herndl, G. J. (2026). Major contribution of particle-associated microbes to deep-sea organic carbon degradation. Limnology and Oceanography, 71, e70310. https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.70310
- Guo, K., Zhao, Z., Breyer, E., & Baltar, F. (2025). Organic matter degradation by oceanic fungi differs between polar and non-polar waters. Nature Communications, 16(1), 7589–15. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63047-4
- Zhao, Z., Baltar, F., & Herndl, G. J. (2020). Linking extracellular enzymes to phylogeny indicates a predominantly particle-associated lifestyle of deep-sea prokaryotes. Science Advances, 6(16), eaaz4354. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz4354